


Vigil's Dawn

by hellkitty



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 19:27:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2037087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For TF-rare-pairing Wing/Springarm: arpeggios of fate, apogee of hate   Kind of probably sailed cleanly over the prompt but I couldn't NOT write Springarm. :D Buckets of headcanon, bien sur.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vigil's Dawn

It was the ritual, and all of them endured it. It was the last step between Wing and being a full Knight, a full member of the Circle of Light. It was all he had worked for since he’d woken up after Altihex, aiming himself toward it with the singleminded devotion of a mech who had already lost everything.

There was just this, this one night, and he would be a Knight.

It had seemed so simple, really, a vigil, bound to the blade that would become his Great Sword, symbolic ritual. A little uncomfortable, perhaps, but nothing that a long soak in hot oil wouldn’t fix, and Wing? Wing had known pain already, the agony of body and mind as Altihex burned around him, crushed under the weight of the broken building in his shattered city, helpless under the force of his own weakness.

But he’d moved beyond all that, hadn’t he? He thought he had, kneeling with Springarm every morning, sitting in quiet meditation. He’d found a stillness, a peacefulness, there, hearing his own engine cycle in harmony with his mentor’s, and he thought that peace meant the past was behind him.

His optics dove into the blue gem of the Great Sword’s hilt, losing himself in the ancient artifact’s depths. He felt the call of the sky, azure and wide, in the blueness, beckoning with an open palm, teasing him with promises of updrafts and currents to ride, air to surrender his mass into. It felt like the heart of peace to him, the gem, and he felt his spark surge with a kind of giddy joy.

And, bound to the blade, he flew, as though he had no body, as though he was just pure energy, a bright dot of mind in a vast bowl, no past, no future, just a beautiful, exhilarating present, free to move, flying dizzying patterns for the sheer joy of movement, though his body was still, silent, on the vigil room's ornate pavement. 

It changed, suddenly, the way a cloud can cover the sun, and the bright blue light seemed to take an indigo cast, shadows stretching fingers over him, and then he was there, in Altihex again, but looking down on himself, the torn metal, shattered glass, splinters of struts and wires in a burned, clotted mass. He could smell, too, burning and energon and the primal reek of fear and loss. It was too much, everything he thought he'd passed, everything he'd thought he'd left behind in hours of meditation, but meditation was a sanctuary, after all, a safe, isolated space. 

_Everything you have_ , he thought, though the words didn’t sound like him, didn’t feel like him, but they had a sonorous resonance of truth, _can be taken from you_. He shuddered, blinking, but the blue hold on his gold optics never changed, never wavered, as though the blade itself had come alive, holding him, forcing him to face his greatest fears, burning him in a new conflagration. He heard a sound, realizing belatedly it was his own voice, sounding foreign to him, in a raw whimper. He moved, shifting his weight, trying to pull free, but the bindings lashed him tight, knees and wrists, to the Great Sword. It didn’t shift: if anything changed it was the tightness of the bindings against him, reminding him he was kept here, helpless.

Helpless, immobile, again.

“You’re so brave.”

Three words dropped into his awareness: Springarm’s voice, cool and steady against the shaking heat that was Wing’s own mind. His gaze released from the gem, and he could see, beyond it, the two green pools of Springarm’s optics, calm and sure, as he knelt in front of Wing, keeping vigil with his oblate, his own palms spread on his thighs.  

“I-I don’t feel brave.”

“No one ever does,” Springarm said, his mouth lifting into a soft smile, the kind that covered an old wound like a blanket.

Springarm had known his own pain—he never told Wing his story, but none who came to the Circle came without some shadow they sought to drive away with the Light.  

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Do nothing. Just be.”

The words shook Wing down to his core, down to the very foundation of who he’d ever been. He’d always wanted to help people, to save people, to bring beauty and meaning and good to others, even before the attack on Altihex which had nearly killed him.

But he could see, suddenly, how everything lined up: his helpless immobility at Altihex, and now, here. Always wanting to do, always wanting action, adventure, movement, as though just staying, just being, would shake him apart.

He gave an unsteady nod, feeling his arms tremble against their binding, and the gem’s blueness took him again: he felt swallowed by it, but this time he didn’t move, didn’t try to fly or even to look, trying his hardest to just…be, and be still. _Do nothing. Just be. And it will be enough._

He was like a bubble in engex, a silver sphere, surrounded by life, surrounded by all emotions—joy, anger, fear, loss, love—the whole panoply of existence, and they were less than bubbles, they were clouds in the sky, or gusts of wind, something to fly over, under, on, through, and then done.

Everything passed, every joy, every sorrow, every injury, every love. He could feel them spinning around him in a complicated dance, like a musical harmony too complex for a mind like his to understand. All he knew is they came, they passed, they came again, and he was still there, a little bead of light, growing stronger, growing somehow more sure, through them all. 

He heard another sound, from outside this, his own voice shaking in sobs, because it was so beautiful and painful all at once, and he knew the gem was showing him his truth, that under his deepest fear, under his deepest loss, was his greatest treasure: hope.

Everything you have can be taken from you…except hope, except the strong, bright faith that things passed, and passed again, and happiness came and faded as surely as anger, and both were to be honored in their own ways, ripples upon the surface of who he was.

The world lurched, his limbs singing in pain, and he realized Springarm had cut him free, was lifting him and his locked joints up from the floor. The touch was like satin, sure and sensual, and he let himself fall into that for a long moment—the arms under him, the flightless weightlessness of being carried, and the lingering essence of just…being, without trying.

The gem’s blue glow faded from his dazzled, dazed vision, slowly, but he could still feel it, like a blue light spinning around his spark, knowing his deepest self, and ready to remind him of his strength whenever he needed it.

But now, Springarm stretched him in the alcove of the vigil room, laying him by the arabesqued window. It was dawn, now, it was over, and the gold light of Cybertron’s sun was limning the sky lighting clouds up gold and violet before it, turning the cityscape beneath into an ocean of glittering lights, housing countless sparks touched by violence and anger but also pleasure and beauty, spinning a web of gossamer light that—just for a klik—Wing could swear he could see, a vast network of colors and emotions, under the steel and glass, the beautiful tapestry of life itself.

He took a deep vent of the air, feeling it cool his stressed systems, smelling the bright fragrance of dawn, a new day and all its promise and potential. It was over, he had passed, and he was a Knight now, everything he’d striven for, and…he turned to Springarm, kneeling behind him, supporting his shoulder nacelle, and tipped his head up, his EM field glimmering with the arcane and sacred truths, and his mouth met Springarm’s in a touch beyond physical, and the light of the new day lit them both with its holy fire.


End file.
